feather-bed than the young baronet; and, in
fact, his own observations, recorded in the early part of this volume,
sufficiently prove his predilection for an indulgence which, we take
it, in no way impugned his character as a soldier. Sir Everard would
have fought twenty battles in the course of the month, if necessary,
and yet not complained of the fatigue or severity of his service,
provided only he had been suffered to press his downy couch to what is
termed a decent hour in the day. But he had an innate and, perhaps, it
may be, an instinctive horror of drills and early rising; a pastime in
which the martinets and disciplinarians of the last century were very
much given to indulge. He frequently upheld an opinion that must have
been little less than treason in the eyes of a commander so strict as
Colonel de Haldimar, that an officer who rose at eight, with all his
faculties refreshed and invigorated, might evince as much of the true
bearing of the soldier in the field, as he who, having quitted his
couch at dawn, naturally felt the necessity of repose at a moment when
activity and exertion were most required.

We need scarcely state, Sir Everard's theories on this important
subject were seldom reduced to practice; for, even long before the
Indians had broken out into open acts of hostility, when such
precautions were rendered indispensable, Colonel de Haldimar had never
suffered either officer or man to linger on his pillow after the first
faint dawn had appeared. This was a system to which Sir Everard could
never reconcile himself. He had quitted England with a view to active
service abroad, it is true, but he had never taken "active service" in
its present literal sense, and, as he frequently declared to his
companions, he preferred giving an Indian warrior a chance for his
scalp any hour after breakfast, to rising at daybreak, when, from very
stupefaction, he seldom knew whether he stood on his head or his heels.
"If the men must be drilled," he urged, "with a view to their health
and discipline, why not place them under the direction of the adjutant
or the officer of the day, whoever he might chance to be, and not
unnecessarily disturb a body of gentlemen from their comfortable
slumbers at that unconscionable hour?" Poor Sir Everard! this was the
only grievance of which he complained, and he complained bitterly.
Scarcely a morning passed without his inveighing loudly against the
barbarity of such a custom; threa